Surfing photography.

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To most people, hurricanes trigger thoughts of danger and destruction; to surfers, hurricanes present opportunity and hope for large waves to surf. Hurricane Bill offered sports photographers on the East Coast the opportunity to shoot images of surfers in action. If alert, quick and ready to travel, the surf photographer was given the chance to shoot fabulous images.

To shoot surfers on large waves you must be alert to weather patterns and storms. It helps to use the Internet as much as possible. National and international Web sites are available to surfers and photographers to help locate and predict wave conditions along all coasts. Some sites just predict wave heights, tides, and wind conditions, etc, at various breaks. Other sites have actual cameras set up at surf spots so you can see the conditions before you travel long distances for a big disappointment. Some sites are pay sites and others are free sites.

Surf breaks* are fickle. They depend on the correct tides, winds and waves being just right or else there is nothing to shoot. Some surf breaks require high tide, or low tide, or middle tide. Again, this information is available to the general public via the Internet. In general, early morning provides the best time to shoot surf photography since the winds are light and generally offshore. Glassy water (smooth) or slight offshore winds provide the best surfing conditions and the bestlooking surf photography.

* A surf break is a permanent obstruction such as a coral reef, rock, shoal, or headland that causes a wave to break.

Before attempting to shoot surf photography you must have the right equipment and lots of patience. Basically, the well-equipped Wildlife Photographer has the same or similar equipment needed to shoot good surf photography. Minimum equipment required is a very long and fast lens, a sturdy tripod, and a good camera with at least 10 to 12 mega-pixels and a large flash card. Since most good surf breaks are far offshore a 900mm lens, or equivalent, is required to get good clear images of the surfer. As an example, a 300mm f/2.8 lens with a 2X extender plus a camera body with a 1.5X magnification factor provides an equivalent of 900mm. An additional 1.5X extender gives you that extra long reach, if need be. A sturdy full-sized tripod with aluminum legs should be used due to long exposures to sea salts, air, and water. A good quality DSLR camera is necessary with as fast a motor drive as possible and with as large a flash card as you can afford; preferably 16 GB or larger. Extra cards will be needed if the surf and surfers are good that day. When buying flash cards for sports photography it is important to purchase the fastest card that manufacturers offer, as whatever sport you're shooting the images need to be processed fast so you can continue shooting and capturing great images. A very important item not to forget is freshly charged camera batteries. Two or 3 extra batteries are recommended.

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A good camera body with a fast motor drive is a must. Waves and surfers move very fast, requiring a fast shutter speed and an even faster motor drive of 3 to 5 fps or more. These days' surfers ride all over the waves. They ride from top to bottom, right to left and back again. Some of the best shots are aerial or air shots. These images are highly prized by surfers and surfing photographers. It takes patience and quickness with the shutter release button. Shooting surfers is very similar to shooting birds in flight; you must be fast and quick on the trigger and it requires a fast motor drive if you want to obtain the best action images.

A good surf photographer must have lots of patience. Everything depends on good waves and good surfers. Large storm waves arrive at the break in long periods; say 17 seconds or 20 seconds. Waves generally arrive in sets of 3 or 4 waves at a time with the last wave being the largest and the one most surfers go after. The longer the wave period, the larger the waves, and in general, the longer surfers wait for the next set of waves to arrive. This means there is lots of waiting by everyone, surfer and surf photographer alike, before another good wave breaks.

Between wave sets is a good time to check your LCD screen and see if minor changes in camera settings are needed or desired to obtain better results. The sun angle is always changing and the surf break moves inland or out depending on the tides and surf size. So it is a good idea to evaluate all camera settings periodically,

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Surfing is a very fast sport. A shutter speed of 1/1000 second or faster is recommended. It is also recommended that you keep the ISO setting as low as possible to avoid image noise. If the sun is shining, this will probably not be a problem. However, when clouds appear and move across the sky, there may be a problem with not enough light falling on the subject. This is when the surf photographer has to make judgment calls. The white water is always going to be a bright white, while the surfer might be in the dark behind a wave, such as in early morning (East Coast) surf photography sessions. White balance should be set for Sunny unless another setting delivers better results. Knowing your camera and how certain settings affect results is important. Generally, shooting all high quality (large) Jpeg images is the way to go. Shooting RAW + Jpeg is an alternative, but you'll quickly fill up the card and it may slow down the camera motor drive speed, depending on your camera's processing speed.

Whether you shoot in Manual Mode, in P (program mode), in Sports Mode, or Shutter Priority mode, is up to you. You should try them all. Depending on the large lens or combination of lenses you use, one or two of these camera-shooting modes will deliver the best results. Experiment or rely on your wildlife experience, at first, to see if results are acceptable. The important thing to remember is that you'll need a fast shutter speed: a shutter speed of at least 1/1000 sec, to capture the surfer's movements, is a must.

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It is very important to set the camera on the correct auto-focus mode. Most cameras have several auto-focus modes such as single-shot, continuous, center-focus, etc. Because surfing photography is very fast it is important to set your auto-focus to continuous or its equivalent on your camera. Some cameras or lenses, steady-state modes are affected by use of auto-focus on a tripod. Check with your camera handbook to determine if camera or lens settings must be adjusted or turned off.

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Sports photography images, if shot correctly in-camera, should not need a large amount of time at the computer editing images. On a good day you might shoot 800 to 1000 images or more. Unless you like to sit in front of the computer all day and night, it is suggested you get the image and exposures correct in-camera. This is one reason why pro sports photographers shoot mostly in Jpeg files and not in RAW. The accompanying images were shot in large high quality Jpeg on Florida's East Coast when Hurricane Bill was 250 miles off shore. The images were marginally cropped with minor sharpening.

One great thing about shooting surfing in the digital age is that you can keep shooting continuously as if you were shooting a short movie. A sequence of images of one surfer on one wave for 10 seconds is now possible. This allows the surf photographer a chance to obtain that one great shot among many, i.e., that perfect image. The computer now allows you to select that one great image or to select them all and show them in sequence as is done in many of the surfing magazines.

Like shooting wildlife, or boating, or sunrises, or camping it is generally important to wake up early to get to the shoreline as soon as possible. The old saying is still valid; "The early bird catches the worm." The early surf photographer catches the best images.

Any mention of products or services in this article or anywhere else in the PSA Journal does not constitute an endorsement or approval of those items.

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Ed Dvorak

Coral Springs, Florida